祈福德 中國的環境危機與希望
After 20 years in Asia as a journalist, Mark Clifford took over as executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council in 2007. His new book, “The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency,” explores how Asian companies are making strides in providing environmental solutions. China is a special focus because of the country’s huge emissions of carbon, but also because of its potential for an interview, Mr. Clifford discussed the need to link businesses, governments and nongovernmental organizations to fight climate change:
在亞洲當了20多年記者之後，馬克·祈福德(Mark Clifford)於2007年出任總部在香港的亞洲企業領袖協會(Asia Business Council)常務董事。他的新書《亞洲的環保：解決亞洲環境緊急狀態的商業案例》(The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency)探討亞洲企業如何在提供環保解決方案上大步邁進。本書特別關注了中國，不但因爲中國的巨大碳排放量，而且也因爲其創新的潛力。在一次採訪中，祈福德討論了在應對氣候變化問題上，企業、政府和非政府組織互動的必要性：
Q. How did you get interested in this topic?
問：你是怎麼對這個主題感興趣的？A. I joined the Council in 2007 and inherited an almost-finished study on green buildings. That was pretty exotic in Asia back then, and we published a book on it. It got me thinking about the topic.
答：我2007年到協會工作，接過來一個馬上就要完成的綠色建築研究項目。那時候，綠色建築在亞洲還是相當新鮮的東西，我們出版了一部有關的書。這讓我開始思考這個主題。
Q. Your angle is a bit more hopeful than some. Tell us how that came to be.
問：你的角度比有些人的更充滿希望。請問你是怎麼形成這種觀念的。A. Originally, I thought I’d do a book along the lines of “The East Is Black.” And we do have an emergency here. In China, 1.2 million a year are dying prematurely. People need to know how bad it is, but then I got to thinking that this was pretty obvious. Instead, I thought that there are these much more positive responses underway, and people should know about them. The business community, which takes challenges and solves problems, was involved. So it is unabashedly a glass-half-full book, but that’s because it’s important to know there’s a way out. We can despair, we can do nothing, or we can work to solve one of the greatest challenges of our time.
答：本來，我以爲我會按照“東方黑”這個思路寫本書。亞洲目前的確面臨着環境的緊急狀態。在中國，每年有120萬人過早死亡。人們需要知道環境有多麼糟糕，但後來我開始思考。環境糟糕是明擺着的。與之相反的是，我覺得有些正在採取的更積極的響應，人們應該瞭解這些東西。喜歡挑戰和解決問題的商業圈子的人蔘與了進來。所以，這是一本不加掩飾地樂觀的書，但這是因爲知道有出路很重要。我們可以絕望，我們可以什麼都不做，或者我們可以一起解決我們這個時代的一個最大挑戰。Q. Do you see business being the main player in solving the issue?
問：你看到企業在成爲解決這個問題的主要力量了嗎？A. No, it’s part of the solution. There has to be a three-legged stool of government, civil society and business, and each has to bring its strengths to the table.
答：沒有，企業能解決部分的問題。必須要有政府、公民社會和企業形成的三條腿的凳子，三方都需要拿出自己的長處。Only governments have the power to set rules — the laws and regulations, of course, but also the prices in the forms of taxes and subsidies as well as facilitating infrastructure developments. Media and NGOs make sure that business and government are doing what they promise.
只有政府有制定規則、也就是法律法規的權力，政府還能以稅收和補貼的形式、以及促進基礎設施建設來影響價格。媒體和非政府組織能監督企業和政府，看看他們是否在做他們承諾的事情。Q. What was most surprising is how many companies are doing this in one form or another.
問：最令人驚訝的是，有這麼多的公司在以這種或那種形式在做這件事情。A. Yes, in the book I profile more than a dozen companies at length but also have an appendix of more than 50 companies that are involved with a variety of environmental initiatives. It was surprising to me what’s going on at the corporate level, but they’re doing things for good business reasons. Some are for the P.R. effect, but most look at it as necessary for survival.
答：是的，我在書中詳細介紹了十幾家公司的情況，書裏還有一個包括50多家公司的附錄，這些公司都有某種形式的環保措施。企業層面正在發生的事情令我驚訝，但它們這樣做有好的商業理由。有些是爲了公關效果，但大多數企業認爲這事關它們的生存。Q. You focused one chapter on Hong Kong’s CLP Holdings, the electric power company.
問：你用了一章來集中介紹電力公司香港中電控股。A. Their work really sparked this project. In 2007, the then-chief executive, Andrew Brandler, announced that by mid-century, they would cut the carbon intensity of their electricity production by 75 percent. This pledge by one of Asia’s biggest private utilities — mostly coal-fired power plants — to effectively decarbonize by mid-century is unparalleled globally. I think this stems from the Kadoorie family, which owns a major stake in CLP. Michael Kadoorie challenges his top management to look at 50-year horizons. They do this for good reasons. They’re traditionally a coal-burning utility, but they think that this isn’t a good business model in 50 years.
答：他們的工作真正讓我開始寫這本書。2007年，當時的首席執行官包立賢(Andrew Brandler)宣佈，到本世紀中葉，公司將把他們電力生產的碳強度降低75％。這是亞洲最大的主要靠燃煤發電的私營電力公司之一，它做出在世紀中葉基本上實現去碳化的承諾在全球絕無僅有。我認爲這源於擁有中電主要股份的嘉道理(Kadoorie)家族。米高·嘉道理(Michael Kadoorie)向他的高層管理人員提出挑戰，要他們着眼未來的50年。他們這樣做有好的理由。他們傳統上是一個燃煤電力公司，但他們認爲50年後這個商業模式行不通。Other companies think that water is underpriced, and in the future, it will be more realistically priced. Carbon also is underpriced, and other companies want to be ready for when it’s changed.
還有的公司認爲水的定價過低，在未來，水的價格將會更符合實際。碳的價格也過低，企業要做好其價格改變的準備。But not all companies have long-term visions.
但是，並非所有的公司都有長遠的視野。To reach them, you need the other two legs of the stool. You need good, strong government policy, and you need NGOs to hold people accountable.
爲了讓那些公司也考慮環境問題，你需要凳子的另外兩條腿。你需要好的、強有力的政府政策，而且你需要非政府組織來督促人們承擔責任。Q. What countries have had good policies?
問：哪些國家有好的政策？A. Singapore has done an exemplary job. They decided very early on that water is of existential threat to the nation. So they have taken very firm policies, and it gives companies a form of certainty about costs.
答：新加坡做出了典範性的工作。他們很早就決定，水是威脅國家生死存亡的資源。所以，他們已經採取了非常堅定的政策，而且新加坡讓公司對水的成本有一種確定性。Not every country has the capacity that Singapore’s administration has, and it’s a small place with a forward-thinking government. It’s much harder in big countries like China and India, which are more fragmented.
不是每個國家都有新加坡政府的能力，那是有一個很小的地方，政府又很有前瞻性。在中國和印度這樣的大國要難得多，問題更復雜。Q. You have a lot on China.
問：書裏有很多關於中國的部分。A. The good news is we have good policies coming down from the top levels of the Chinese government. Where China continues to struggle is the implementation at the ground level. There’s not always enforcement, and there’s no civil society to act as a check. The time when China decides that the environment and energy issues are as much of a threat as the color revolutions were, or the Hong Kong protests were last year, that’s when we’ll know we have serious progress. We’ve seen with Chai Jing [whose popular documentary film on the environment, “Under the Dome,” was banned] that civil society is muted.
答：好消息是，我們有中國政府高層制定的很好的政策。中國需要不斷解決的問題是政策在下級層面得到實施。中國的執法不總是很嚴，而且也沒有公民社會來充當制衡。只有到了中國意識到環境和能源問題的威脅，與顏色革命（或者香港去年抗議）的威脅一樣嚴重的時候，我們纔會知道我們有了不可輕視的進展。我們從柴靜事件已經看到，中國不讓公民社會發聲。（柴靜深受歡迎的環境紀錄片《穹頂之下》被禁。）Q. We read a lot about air pollution, but you also think that water is crucial.
問：我們經常讀到有關空氣污染的報道，但你覺得水也至關重要。A. Increasingly, water is a hard-stop issue. Air pollution is horrible, but most people affected by it are still living. But no one can live without water. I don’t know what people will do when the water stops. In China, projects like the South-North Water Diversion Project just delay the day of reckoning. What concerns me is that even most otherwise far-sighted governments are not facing up to the challenges.
答：水越來越多地成爲一個存亡問題。空氣污染很可怕，但受它影響的大多數人仍然活着。但是，沒有水就沒有人能活。我不知道水沒了的時候，人們將怎麼辦。在中國，像南水北調這樣的工程項目只能推遲算總帳的日子。我擔心的是，即使在其他問題上有遠見的政府也還沒有直面這個挑戰。For example, what do you do if you’re a municipal official, and you have an industry, say semi-conductors, which uses a lot of water? What do you do when you have to make a choice: water for the factory or the town? These are the kinds of choices that aren’t going to happen today or tomorrow, but governments will face this.
比如，如果你是一個市政官員，你會怎麼做？你管着一個行業，比如半導體，它需要大量的水。當你需要做出選擇：水是給工廠、還是給城市的時候，你會怎麼做？這種選擇不會在今天或明天發生，但政府將面臨這種選擇。Q. And yet there are signs of hope in China.
問：中國也還有希望的跡象？A. China is about to overtake Germany as having the largest amount of installed solar power capability. It also has large wind turbine facilities. All of this is important because China burns half the world’s coal and accounts for 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. So to fix China, we need to cut coal use. Coal is supposed to peak in 2030, but it could happen a lot faster. So these are huge challenges, but China is potentially further ahead than many people realize.
答：中國即將超過德國，成爲太陽能發電裝機能力最大的國家。中國還有大量的風力發電機組設備。所有這一切都很重要，因爲中國燒掉了世界上一半的煤，釋放了世界上二氧化碳排放量的30％。因此，要解決中國的問題，就需要削減煤炭的使用。煤炭使用預計將在2030年達到峯值，但峯值可能會更快地達到。所以這些都是巨大的挑戰，但中國可能邁出的步伐比許多人意識到的要更大。
